Tannoy Speakers

Well i'll post the first contrary opinion. I have heard a TD12, and a few Tannoy Prestige speakers, including a Westminster Royal. Each of these speakers was fitted with the Tannoy super tweeter. I did not like any of them.

Just a note - the owner of the Westminster Royal indicated to me that he had the crossover settings wrong on the day that I visited. So I will exclude it from my comments until I get a chance to listen again. My comments are based on the Glenair, Turnberry, and the Kensington.

Tannoy Prestige speakers produce a very pleasant sound - warm, inviting, and comfortable. It is a very easy sound to listen to, a bit like an old wine which has lost its aggression.

However, when you want to really hear what is going on, the speakers fail. They simply fall over when asked to present complex orchestral works. Suppose I want to analyze what the cellists are doing in a Wagner piece. The Tannoys will not allow you to do that.

The romantic coloration of all pieces does not work with most types of music. The speakers have the effect of slowing the music down and giving it a bit more bloom. I wonder if cone breakup is the culprit - being such a large dome, and being asked to handle such a wide frequency response.

wrt the 3 speakers above - the Glenair seems to have the most coloration, and the Kensington the least.

12-03-07: Amfibius
Well i'll post the first contrary opinion.

Good for you! - However, it would be interesting (for me at least)to know what amp was driving them.

I have found that in many instances - when someone reports that a good pair of speakers are not performing to expectation, it is probably the amp & speaker combination that is the culprit and not the speaker alone.

e.g.
Living Voice are dull and lifeless with the Raysonic SP120, but are improved considerably with the Raysonic SE 30

The Tannoy Sensys DC2 are very bassey and uncontrolled with the Cambridge Audio Azur 640 amp, but with the Exposure 2010 they perform extremely well

Also - the speakers you mention have an adjustable crossover, which may not have been adjusted to the optimum setting for the listening envorinment - or simply set to the owners preference!

Also - Speaker Position is crucial to good speaker performance - I've commented several times to my local hi-fi store about this one. Most listening environments are not optimally configured for good sound

Having said that - Tannoy are not to everyone's tastes - that is why there are so many other brands out there

But they are very good speakers - along with many others!

I would still be interested in knowing what amp they were paired with?

Regards...

I have a set of M4's and they sound great to my unqualified ears. Everything we have played through them has surprised us with demonstrating how much we missed out with other speakers.

I am very pleased with these.

Williewonka, the Tannoys I heard were all driven with Cary amplification. The Glenair with the Cary CAD-300SE monoblocks (17W SET), the Kensington with my Cary CAD-805AE (50W SET) which I had just returned as a trade-in. I cannot remember what amp was driving the Kensington and TD12 as that was quite some time ago, but it was definitely a Cary valve amp of some sort. As you may guess, this was in a dealer's showroom who sells ... Tannoy and Cary :)

Amfibius

the Tannoys I heard were all driven with Cary amplification

Hmmm - Cary makes exceptional equipment, but you do need a aweful lot of juice(amps) to drive the speakers you mentioned.

However, it sounds more like the it was the setup and surroundings that added the "color" and not the equipment.

The rooms that most dealers setup for audition purposes are no more than somewhere you can listen to music undisturbed.

The ceilings are too high, the materials on the walls are inadequate, but the biggest offense by far, which is also the easiest to remedy, is Speaker Placement.

Each Sspeaker perform differently, but retailers place them all in a similar position and more often than not, they are only 6 ft apart - WRONG!

I spent a lot of time on placement and now have what I consider a very neutral sound

My quick rules of thumb for "Normal" or "Box" speakers are:
1. For placement from sidewalls
- I use the 1/nth principal
- place the speaker (i.e. the centre of the driver) in from the side wall 1/nth the width of the room - where n is an odd number
- The distance does not have to be the same for each speaker
e.g. 1/5th for left and 1/7th for left works also

2. for placement from the back wall:
- Front ported speakers - Minimum 1 ft from the back wall
- Rear/bottom ported - minimum 3 ft from the back wall

3. For Toe in - I start by adjusting the speaker to focus the sound 3 ft behind the listening position - i.e. when seated I can just see the inside surface of both speakers (assuming they are rectangular and not one of the new shapes)

Once you have an initial setup, play with it until you get the best sound

For Electrostatics - they like to be "free Standing" so you'll need a LARGE room to get the best out of them. The best I've heard to date were a pair of Magnapan's situated in a 20ft x 14ft room along the long wall - 4 ft from the Back to the wall and 5ft in from the sides - they were about 10ft apart and they were completely transparent.

My front ported Tannoy Mercury 4's are about 14 inches from the rear wall (to the back of the speaker) an my rear ported Magnat's are 3ft from the rear wall - any closer than that and the image becomes confused and the bass starts to get muddy and loses all of that nice detail

Also the Magnat's are very sensitive to Toe-in and can also lose detail and image if not set just right.

The Tannoy's are not helped by the TV being located between them, but they perform admirably under the circumstances.

But the worst speaker I have seen for placement recently is the new Ninka from Linn.

According to the Linn Rep:
- They MUST be only 1ft from the Back wall
- No toe-in
- Between 6-7ft apart
- have nothing in between them

Even after the correct setup, I was NOT impressed by the sound. Pitty! - I've always been a huge fan of their product - up until now that is.

Regards...